First On-Road Tests For Autonomous Jaguar Land Rovers

Jaguar Land Rover is taking part in the UK’s first road tests for autonomous and connected vehicles. Real-world testing takes Jaguar Land Rover another step closer to bringing an intelligent vehicle to reality.

As part of the £20m UK Autodrive project, Jaguar Land Rover is testing a range of research technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other as well as roadside infrastructure, such as traffic lights on the roads of Coventry. The trials will explore how future connected and autonomous vehicles can replicate human behavior and reactions when driving.

Jaguar Land Rover is developing both fully and semi-autonomous vehicle technologies to offer customers a choice of an engaged or autonomous drive while maintaining an enjoyable and safe driving experience. The company’s vision is to make the self-driving car viable in the widest range of real-life, on- and off-road driving environments and weather.

Testing this self-driving project on public roads is so exciting, as the complexity of the environment allows us to find robust ways to increase road safety in the future. By using inputs from multiple sensors, and finding intelligent ways to process this data, we are gaining accurate technical insight to pioneer the automotive application of these technologies. Jaguar Land Rover is proud to be a leader in collaborative research projects for autonomous and connected cars. We are supporting innovative research that will be integral to the infrastructure, technology and legal landscape needed to make intelligent, self-driving vehicles a reality within the next decade.”
— Nick Rogers, Executive Director – Product Engineering

With the launch of the trials, Coventry joins just 12 other cities in conducting tests on public roads globally.

UK Autodrive is the largest of three consortia launched to support the introduction of self-driving vehicles into the UK. It is helping to establish the UK as a global hub for research, development, and integration of automated and connected vehicles into society. The consortium has already proven these research technologies in a closed track environment and the start of real-world testing is the next step to turning the research into reality. The trials will continue into 2018.

Jaguar Land Rover has revealed some of the prototype technologies that its UK-based research team are developing to deliver autonomous driving in the future. A Remote Control Range Rover Sport research vehicle demonstrates how a driver could drive the vehicle from outside the car via their smartphone. The smartphone app includes control of steering, accelerator and brakes as well as changing from high and low range. This would allow the driver to walk alongside the car, at a maximum speed of 4mph, to manoeuvre their car out of challenging situations safely, or even to negotiate difficult off-road terrain. The driver could use the smartphone to reverse the car out of a parking space if someone has parked too close for them to open the door, or allow the driver to become their own off-road spotter, to guide the car over […]

Jaguar Land Rover showcased its latest Connected and Autonomous Vehicle technologies as part of the UK Autodrive demonstrations taking place at HORIBA MIRA. In a UK first, Jaguar Land Rover is working with Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Centre to test connected technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other as well as the roadside infrastructure, such as traffic lights, in the future. Connected and Autonomous Vehicle technologies are one of Jaguar Land Rover’s research priorities. It is creating a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles to develop and test a wide range of Connected and Autonomous Vehicle technologies over the next four years. Ultimately, these technologies will enhance the driving experience as well as making driving smarter, safer and even cleaner in the years to come. Tony Harper, Head of Research, Jaguar Land Rover, said: […]

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A Range Rover Sport has completed the first ever self-driving lap of one of the UK’s most challenging road layouts. A prototype self-driving Range Rover Sport handled the complex Coventry Ring Road, successfully changing lanes, merging with traffic and exiting junctions at the speed limit of 40mph. The trial is part of the £20 million government-funded project, UK Autodrive, which ends this month after a three-year programme. Jaguar Land Rover engineers have completed significant self-driving technology testing on closed tracks before heading onto public roads in Milton Keynes and Coventry. Staff